In a city with nearly double-digit unemployment, a recruiter with 100 available job openings sat alone in an empty room Thursday inside the 400 City Hall Square building.

But such is the state of the trucking industry, which faces an acute shortage of drivers.

“People don’t want to drive anymore,” said Rebecca Wismer, a recruiter from Kee Human Resources, which hosted the job fair and represents about 50 companies.

“If I had 800 jobs locally I might be able to fill them in an instant, but guys don’t want to cross the border. The younger generation is not getting into trucking.”

As of noon, six people came to the job fair — in a city with a 9.5 unemployment rate — expressing interest as a driver with the required AZ qualifications for the openings.

“That’s six drivers I can put to work on Monday,” Wismer said. “That’s pretty good.”

The dynamics of the industry have changed greatly — very few will take work as a long-haul driver that might require being on the road for 14 days, off for a couple, then back on the road again, she said.

A large majority of drivers want to be home with their families every night.

“You see a lot more fathers who are hands-on and we have more women driving,” Wismer said.”They want to be home with their kids.”

A Conference Board of Canada report released this month showed that in Ontario 90 per cent of consumer goods and food items are moved by truck. The industry supports 480,000 jobs in Canada, resulting in almost $24 billion in personal income, the report said.

But the shortage of drivers is expected to worsen as older drivers retire and younger people refuse to enter the industry, the report said.

Sixty per cent of truckers are over the age of 45, with almost 25 per cent 55 or older. Only 12 per cent of drivers are under the age of 30, far lower than other occupations, the report said.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance released a report a year ago which warned of the economic implications of a “long-term, chronic shortage of qualified drivers.”

Members of the alliance — which represents 4,500 trucking companies — believe the Canadian economy could stall because of the shortage, the report said.

The industry is facing a “demographic tsunami,” said David Bradley, CEO of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

“We have the oldest workplace in the country,” he said. “Trucking companies are not getting their fair share of people under 30 into the industry.

“It’s a difficult job for some people. Where the shortage is most acute is the long-distance market. It’s hard to convince people to spend that amount of time away from home.”

A long distance driver can earn between $70,000 and $80,000 annually, but that’s not enough incentive, Bradley said.

A short-haul driver generally earns between $45,000 and $60,000.

The conference board report indicated that by 2020 there will be a shortage of 33,000 trucking jobs across Canada, with 10,000 of those in Ontario, Bradley said.

“We’ve really got a big challenge in front of us,” he said. “When you consider 90 per cent of goods are moved by truck, the worst-case scenario if we don’t have enough people in the seats is freight will be left at the dock. That will have repercussions for the entire economy.

“The biggest problem is the level of compensation has been zero growth in the last decade.”

Driver compensation and quality of life for truckers has to improve or nothing will change, Bradley said. But that means consumers are going to have to pay more at the register for food and other transported goods.

“The industry is hyper-competitive to keep prices down for customers and that has not allowed wages to move up,” Bradley said.

Syphasouk (Steve) Sayaphet of Windsor, who has 19 years of truck driving experience, was the seventh person to show up at the local trucker job recruiting fair at around 12:30 p.m.

“I have been driving everywhere from Nova Scotia to B.C.,” he said. “I have been to California, Florida, everywhere in Canada and the U.S. That’s why it’s easy for me to get a job. There is a shortage of drivers. Companies are looking all the time.

“We can pick and choose — this one or that. It makes me feel so much better.”

The labour shortage is a frequent topic of conversation among drivers, he said.

“We talk about it, how we pick and choose,” he said. “You look for better trucks — new trucks or trailers. You don’t want to sit on the side of the road if the truck breaks down. You lose so much time — sometimes 20 hours.”

He works about 50 hours per week with an income of between $4,200 and $4,500 per month, Sayaphet said.

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